Abbas Kiarostami, auteur
Mini Lecture 17
Auteur Theory
• “la politique des Auteurs,” phrase used in 1954 by
François Truffaut (French film director and critic
for the Cahiers du Cinema)
• Becomes “auteur theory” in 1962 with an article
by Andrew Sarris
• An theory based on the importance of film
direction: a film’s “author” is its director. (c.f.
Kracauer)
• Film authorship as an organizing principle, a
classificatory scheme
• The body of work versus the masterpiece
Premise #1: Technique
• “A great director has to be at least a good director”
(Sarris)
• i.e. the director must have some technical competence
• “Technique is simply the ability to put a film together
with some clarity and coherence. Nowadays, it is
possible to become a director without knowing too
much about the technical side, even the crucial
functions of photography and editing. An expert
production crew could probably cover up for a
chimpanzee in the director’s chair. How do you tell the
genuine director from the quasichimpanzee? After a
given number of films, a pattern is established.”
Premise #2: Personal Style
• “The distinguishable personality of the
director” is a measure of value.
• “Over a group of films [i.e. an oeuvre], a
director must exhibit certain recurrent
characteristics of style, which serve as his
signature. The way a film looks and moves
should have some relationship to the way a
director thinks and feels.”
• A metteur en scene (or scene-setter) is not an
auteur
Premise #3: Interior Meaning
• “Interior meaning”; “an élan of the soul”
• Combines a director’s vision of the world and attitude
toward life with the stuff of filmmaking
• Form and content cannot be unentangled
• “In one sequence of…, Renoir gallops up the stairs, turns to
his right with a lurching movement, stops in hoplike
uncertainty when his name is called by a coquettish maid,
and, then, with marvelous postreflex continuity, resumes
his bearishly shambling journey to the heroine’s boudoir. If I
could describe the musical grace note of that momentary
suspension, and I can’t, I might be able to provide a more
precise definition of the auteur theory.”
TECHNIQUE
PERSONAL STYLE:
METTEUR EN SCENE
INTERIOR MEANING:
AUTEUR